Travis County Jail

For the first time in two years, some people arrested in Travis County who can't afford lawyers will have one during their first court appearance.

Austin Community College and the Travis County Sheriff’s Office have been working on getting this program off the ground for more than two years. The pilot is grant-funded.

Research shows having a lawyer present often reduces bail amounts. The county will provide lawyers for a limited time on Tuesday and Thursday. It has tried to roll out a program for years.

Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican, was booked into the Travis County jail at 2:12 a.m.

For years, the county has been trying to give defendants access to lawyers at their first hearings in jail. Staffing shortages and, now, privacy concerns may kill that effort.

A new report finds jails struggled to keep up with daily logs of new cases and could've provided more transparency on isolation, testing and quarantine policies.

Commissioners heard hours of testimony against the proposal, which would cost roughly $79 million, before voting to hold off on the design plan for the jail — or any facility.

Grupos de activistas están pidiéndole al condado de Travis que deseche sus planes para construir una nueva cárcel para mujeres y que mejor use esos fondos para promover alternativas a la encarcelación.

Activist groups are calling on Travis County commissioners to scratch plans for a new women's jail and instead invest in alternatives to mass incarceration.

Throughout the pandemic, Travis County has seen a relatively low number of positive cases in jails. That changed this week.